Triloknath Pandit is an Indian

anthropologist An anthropologist is a person engaged in the practice of anthropology. Anthropology is the study of aspects of humans within past and present societies. Social anthropology, cultural anthropology and philosophical anthropology study the norms and ...

. He was the first professional anthropologist to land on the

North Sentinel Island North Sentinel Island is one of the Andaman Islands, an Indian archipelago in the Bay of Bengal which also includes South Sentinel Island. It is home to the Sentinelese, an indigenous people in voluntary isolation who have defended, often by f ...

in 1967, leading the team that made the first friendly contact with the

Sentinelese people The Sentinelese, also known as the Sentineli and the North Sentinel Islanders, are an indigenous people who inhabit North Sentinel Island in the Bay of Bengal in the northeastern Indian Ocean. Designated a Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Group ...

on 4 January 1991. His expeditions to North Sentinel Island began in 1967 and were initially hostile as the Sentinelese people hid in the jungle and shot arrows at him and his crew on later trips. For 24 years, Pandit and his team brought a variety of gifts and offerings that eventually led to the first friendly contact in 1991. He was head of the

Andaman & Nicobar The Andaman and Nicobar Islands is a union territory of India consisting of 572 islands, of which 37 are inhabited, at the junction of the Bay of Bengal and the Andaman Sea. The territory is about north of Aceh in Indonesia and separated fro ...

Regional Centre of the

Anthropological Survey of India Anthropological Survey of India (AnSI) is the apex Indian government organisation involved in anthropological studies and field data research for human and cultural aspects, working primarily in the fields of physical anthropology and cultural ...

Works

* Pandit, T. N. (1985). The Tribal and Non-Tribal in Andaman Islands: A historical perspectives. ''Journal of the Indian Anthropological Society'' 20:111-131. * Pandit, T. N. (1990).
The Sentinelese
'. Kolkata: Seagull Books. * Pandit, T. N. & Chattopadhyay, M. (1989). Meeting the Sentinel Islanders: The Least Known of the Andaman Hunter-Gatherers. ''Journal of the Indian Anthropological Society'' 24:169-178.

References

Indian anthropologists Living people Scientists from the Andaman and Nicobar Islands 20th-century Indian social scientists Year of birth missing (living people) {{India-scientist-stub